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Topic: Convention Bundle? (Read 2117 times)

I was wondering if anyone else would be interested in a "Exclusive/Convention Bundle?" Essentially, it would be all of the exclusives offered over the summer. It seems like there's going to be a lot this year, and it would be a great strategy for Shop Star Wars, or Hasbro.com, to let people obtain all of products avaliable with one order. Personally, I know that I would order it, even if there was one piece that I might be on the fence about.

I know it may be too late this year, but perhaps we could suggest it in future years.

I don't think they'd be willing to do a convention bundle. I'd be willing to sign up for a set or two, but the event/retail sponsors for Exclusives want something that is primarily only available to their attendees/customers. Sure, you can usually get something like the SDCC exclusives on HTS after the convention, but I always thought they used that as a way to sell off extra product that didn't sell or get ordered, meaning there is no guarantee that you will be able to get an exclusive outside of going to the event.

Hasbro has actually been pretty good about offering show exclusives on-line, and not just leftovers from the shows. I think the SDCC exclusives usually don't go up till after the show, but didn't they put the CIV McQuarrie Luke figures up while the show was still going on?

Hasbro seems to plan to have an allotment of the exclusives for on-line vs just selling leftovers. Otherwise, why advertise them as being available that way in their slideshow presentations?

E...

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"I sell the drugs that keep you people from seeing dragons at night." - Gus "Psych"

I’m not privy to Hasbro’s production numbers or details regarding their exclusive offerings, so you may be right. However, If my company makes an “exclusive product” for someone, we always over produce to ensure that we can meet order numbers. If someone orders 20,000 units for example, we may make 21,000 units in case there are errors, lost cases, etc. I’m assuming Hasbro does the same to avoid lost sales opportunities, so it makes perfect sense for them to say that there will be some vague amount of additional product sold through their site.

Using the numbers above, if all goes well they would have 20,000 convention exclusives and 1,000 leftovers to sell online. But if there is an error or mix-up with 950 items, then they still have 20,000 for the convention, but only 50 to sell online. Had they NOT made the extra product, they would have not been paid for 950 items via the convention and wouldn’t have anything to sell online – not a good move. If the convention has 1,000 leftover, it’s also easy enough for Hasbro to put those available online as well to sell through the extras. This is a win-win process for the convention/store, Hasbro, and the collectors who either attend or can buy online.

Now if you apply this to bundling exclusives, there are two easy reasons we’ll never see this:

#1 – Hasbro is likely to upset companies that are signing up for said exclusives because bundling would take away part of the draw to come to the event/store. If I know for sure I can get a SDCC exclusive online, then maybe I don’t need to go this year and that hurts attendance. Sure, I can maybe get one online, but that’s a little risky for die-hard collectors.

#2 - A guaranteed bundle would also hurt Hasbro’s ability to move extra production or convention leftovers via the example above. Most people know up front if they want they item or not, so if we all signed up for a bundle, who is left to buy the production extras and convention leftovers? There’s more detriment than benefit to Hasbro with bundling.

Hasbro seems to plan to have an allotment of the exclusives for on-line vs just selling leftovers. Otherwise, why advertise them as being available that way in their slideshow presentations?

I think to your point E, that Hasbro learned a while back that making things "too exclusive" is a fast way to alienate their consumer-base on things like that. Sure it's nice to have a momento from where you were, but ultimately it angered those who couldn't attend, and so now there's that allotment for online and they try to satisfy demand for everyone.

I'm pretty geeked about a number of exclusives this year, particularly Cammie/Fixer, and I'm not anticipating trouble getting them. I also don't wait for sales on this stuff though. Even if the track record says it's a good bet, I just never would.

Good points guys. Anyway, I was just thinking outloud. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to Camie/Fixer too. Seeing figures like that make me want even more obscure stuff, like that big fur-vested Jabba dude.